
Campers near the current Stop Plan B Protest; Photo courtesy of PEI Museum and Heritage
By Dr Josh MacFadyen
[Cross-posted on The Otter]
The technologies that have helped enclose us from nature may also help expose us, exposing us to hidden and fragile ecosystems and the common efforts to protect them. Environmental historians argue that the average North American has less contact with the natural environment than any previous generation; we simply spend less of our lives in natural ecosystems. Most of us have never even seen a relatively undisturbed forest, plain, tundra, or estuary.
In places like Bonshaw, Prince Edward Island, where the Provincial Government has matched Federal “Atlantic Gateway” funds for a Trans-Canada Highway Realignment through streams and endangered stands of hemlock forest, it might seem like local residents donít know or donít care about what is at stake. Yet, even as excavators roll in, a growing community of digitally inter-connected protesters on the site has ignited a new interest in this small ecosystem and its human and non-human residents. If technology is partly to blame for our complacency and retreat from nature, can it also be part of the solution?
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